Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC) has commissioned an exciting collaboration with Yorta Yorta MC, poet and instrumentalist DRMNGNOW.
Entitled Muniak Nangarna (meaning “Future Thought”), this sound installation is a completely new body of work expressed through ethereal soundscapes, song and spoken word, developed in the David Li Sound Gallery of the Ian Potter Centre for the Performing Arts, showing 30 May – 2 June.
The work provides a provocative abstract exploration evoked by resilience through adversity of early Indigenous activism of Victorian Aboriginal Peoples through to cultural rejuvenation and ongoing advocacy and cultural custodianship that was driven by Muniak Nangarna and visions for self-determination and sovereignty.
DRMNGNOW at Ian Potter Centre
- Muniak Nangarna by Neil Morris AKA DMNGNOW
- 30 May – 2 June
- Special event: Neil Morris presentation on 30 May, 7:30pm
- David Li Sound Gallery
- The Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts, 48 Exhibition Walk, Clayton
Keep up with the latest music news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
Interview: DRMNGNOW on the power of First Nations music and curating his show for FUSE Darebin
This new work is deeply influenced by Neil’s lens as a Yorta Yorta descendent with bloodline connections to many Koorie Tribes of Victoria, including connections to historical figures within the early Victorian and National Indigenous Rights movements such as Tommy McRae, William Cooper and Sir Douglas Nicholls.
In this work Neil also pays homage to his great grandfather, Aaron Arkinson, an early proponent of land rights advocacy at the forefront of early colonial impacts for the Yorta Yorta specifically, and his great grandmother, Nora Nicholls, the midwife on Cummergunja mission before the Cummergunja Walk off in 1939.
Neil Morris said: “This work is inspired by the custodianship that inspired the Muniak Nangarna of the Victorian Aboriginal cultural, social and political movements and how that places Victorian Aboriginal Peoples today, still focused on self determination and sovereignty in the ways our ancestors dreamed and worked towards.”
The personal and powerful forces behind Neil Morris’ DRMNGNOW hip hop project
Neil Morris is a Yorta Yorta Yiyirr poet, musician, community-based activist, and broadcaster with a formidable voice, well-known for his music project DRMNGNOW and untiring advocacy work around First Nations, rights, culture, and country.
The work will be hosted in partnership with the William Cooper Institute– a hub for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research, learning and engagement that promotes Indigenous leadership and advancement across Monash University.
Find out more information here.
